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Archive for the ‘Jennifer Aniston GODDESS COMEDIENNE’ Category

A Life Of Crime

16 Aug

Life Of Crime – directed by Daniel Schechter. Crimedy. 98 minutes Color 2013.

★★★★★

The Story: three inept criminals target a rich woman for kidnapping.

~

Aren’t you glad I never give away the story?

Why should I when sitting through one as pleasing as this is half the reason for going to a film at all.

Jennifer Aniston plays the lady earmarked for snatching. Is she not the best actress before the cameras today? You may discount her because her haircut does not change. But don’t short-sell her as an actress to watch, follow, wait for, harken to. Her responses are always fresh. You’d think they might not be. You’d think maybe she was stale from all that TV work. You’d wonder that she hasn’t aged. You’d discount her because she always looks good in her clothes. You’d be distracting yourself, if you did, from the brilliance of her work, her mastery of the tone of a role, her instinctual sizing of a part, her ability to strategize a role. Her delivery. Her artistic self-possession. I don’t know what you’re waiting for. She is a masterpiece Chinese meal, a little taste at a time, and a feast throughout.

The film is well written and played perfectly. Tim Robbins plays her cad-husband with disarming relish and talent. Isla Fisher is wonderful as his doxie. Yaslin Bey (known to many as Mos Def, rap artist) is right on the money as one of the crooks. But the one I liked a lot was John Hawkes, an actor I do not remember having seen before, but have actually seen a number of times, mainly in The Sessions where is plays a paraplegic laid out on a bed and receiving sexual services from a surrogate. Where have my eyes been all this while. He has had a big career in film, Oscar nominations and all. I shall seek him out, good, self-taught Virgos as we both are. And he’s just wonderful here as the crook with some common sense and sensibility.

Have I gone off my rocker?

I hope so. Join me. Delight in A Life Of Crime.

 
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Posted in ACTING STYLE: AMERICAN REALISTIC, Jennifer Aniston GODDESS COMEDIENNE, John Hawkes, Tim Robbins

 

Cake

09 Feb

 

Cake – directed by Daniel Barnz. Drama. 102 minutes Color 2015.

★★★★★

The Story: A woman, badly traumatized and scarred, sets everyone’s teeth on edge, as she resists all conventional California remedies.

~

Does this sound promising? I hope not. Drama is not frozen custard. Nor should it have to end in warm and fuzzy, Steiff, panda-bear hugs.

Instead we have a brilliant performance by Jennifer Aniston of a brilliant script by Pat Tobin, and what more do you want? Do you want a gum-drop heart?

Well, this is not a candy store movie. This is the sort of movie Bette Davis pioneered for us, so let’s honor our heritage and place Aniston in our trove of cultural treasures where she belongs. We have a great female American actress here; let’s pay attention!

Long the most skilled of light comediennes – so skilled, indeed, that it is obvious she could play anything – now takes on this mordant drama of a woman who chooses to be coldly sardonic rather than take cheap cures.

There are no cheap cures for what has happened to her. I won’t go into it, because I don’t want to spoil the unfolding of the tale which develops with a narrative expertise teased to ripen before our inexperienced eyes. You have never seen anything like this before. Don’t worry. In this movie, for you too, there is no cheap cure. You will hoe the row.

There is no actress alive who can calibrate a performance with the mastery of Jennifer Aniston. You must behold it to behold it. Her timing, her inflection, her command of the interior valor, her willingness to be mean – all pay off in telling a story whose sole instrument is the character itself.

Adriana Barraza plays her housekeeper, chauffeur, and bodyguard. Brilliant casting. Brilliant performance.

Wonderfully directed.

I wish I could tell you more. But I don’t wish to. I wish you to go yourself and see what Cake tells you all by itself.

 
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Posted in Adriana Barraza, Daniel Barnz, DIRECTED BY Daniel Barnz, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, Jennifer Aniston GODDESS COMEDIENNE, PERSONAL DRAMA, WRITTEN BY: Pat Tobin

 

Bruce Almighty

03 Oct

Bruce Almighty – directed by Tom Shadyak. Comedy. A local small-time newscaster yearns for advancement and sells his soul to God to get it. 101 minutes Color 2003.

★★★★★

I always thought Jim Carrey should play Hamlet. With those eyes. So handsome. So slender. So essentially romantic.

Imagine all that attack held in check. “To be … or not to be!” Imagine him entering the “not-to-be” of that speech, the demoting ratiocination of it, the reduction, the sin of that repression. For if ever an actor was gifted with the To Be it is this one.

This picture is a comic Faust, the tale of a man given supernatural powers, and then having to live up to them imaginatively and compassionately.

Of course, Carrey is very funny when he is not doing that, and the script helps him bountifully.

Jennifer Aniston is present with all her skill as a light comedienne, a skill equaled by no other actor of our time. We have the great Phillip Baker Hall as the boss. We have Steve Carrell playing a nasty, a part which suits him to a T. And we have Morgan Freeman playing God. Or perhaps we should say we have God cast as Morgan Freeman.

Well, the film is full of sight gags, gags which are very witty, and amusement reigns throughout.

What is the reverse of a sight gag?

Hamlet is the reverse of a sight gag.

Jim Carrey is a sight gag. He, like Hamlet, is also a genius.

 
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Posted in ACTING STYLE: AMERICAN REALISTIC, BROAD COMEDY, COMIC FANTASY, Farce, Jennifer Aniston GODDESS COMEDIENNE, Jim Carrey: Acting God, Morgan Freeman, Philip Baker Hall: ACTING GOD

 

Marley And Me

20 Jun

Marley And Me – directed by David Frankel. Low Comedy. A journalist finds his true calling when he starts writing about his rambunctious dog. 114 minutes Color 2008. ★★★★

I don’t know why light comedians are not regarded as serious practitioners of their craft, but it is so. They give pleasure and entertainment for years and to multitudes, but Cary Grant is nominated only twice for an Oscar and never won. Solemnity magnetizes Oscars. Here we have before us two treasures of comic skill: Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. I look at them and am filled with wonder and admiration for their craft, which in Aniston’s case is practiced with delicacy and truth. There is no one now acting who can do light drama and light comedy with the finesse of this actor. To me the skill of such an actor is unfathomable, almost unreadable. Owen Wilson is a different sort of actor, but one who operates perfectly on the same plane as Aniston and makes a good partner with her. He is much more preset in his choices and possibilities. He pitches his voice in a juvenile whine and plays a strong suit in innocence, which may annoy, but what cannot annoy is the bigness of heart that is evident in everything he does. There’s a sort of idiotic juiciness to him, too, which amounts to the sex appeal of a male whose sexuality is still to be awoken. Of course, what you can say against them both is what you can say against almost all young actors of their time, which is that they are not grown-up. He is not a man and she is not a woman. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne were always grownup, and so were the rest of the actors of their time, from 1930 to 1950. Even when young, the actress was a woman and the actor was a man. Here, Aniston is what she has always been, a gal, a million dollar baby in a five and ten cent store. And Wilson is not a man but a boy, Peck’s bad boy. They have formulated themselves this way. They have lived out their youths doing this. It’s a killer course for them when they get to be over forty. And a terrible one, for actors love to act – and so they should – it’s a wonderful calling – but how will they ever play anyone who is mature? The actors of the ‘30s and ‘40s didn’t retire when they hit age 40 or 50; they didn’t have to, because they were already adults. But Aniston and Wilson, so gifted and so formulaic in their decision as to how to use their gifts and in what – they are doomed to their job. Families and marriages would be in defiance of the immaturity upon which their income depends. I wonder about them. I worry about them. And what I have to say about this picture, finally, is that Alan Arkin is very funny in it and the dog isn’t funny at all.

 
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Posted in ACTING STYLE: AMERICAN REALISTIC, ANIMAL DRAMA, BROAD COMEDY, COMEDY/DRAMA, Jennifer Aniston GODDESS COMEDIENNE, Light Comedy, Owen WIlson

 

Rumor Has It

20 Jul

Rumor Has It – Directed by Rob Reiner. Upper Class Romantic Comedy. The Graduate Part II. 97 minutes Color 2005.

* * *

We are doing fine as long as Mark Ruffalo is with us. When force of circumstances require our heroine, Jennifer Aniston, to separate him out, the story declines in all areas of its life. Kathy Bates in a white Harpo wig enters in a muumuu the size of a stadium and give a performance to match. This followed by Kevin Costner who almost escapes execution by the false premise of a script which takes Miss Aniston on a billionaire bash, a treat which impresses her nothing, since the gal is from Pasadena, where billionaires are as to flies on cheese. Even the remarkable Richard Jenkins turns in a bad performance. Now, I ask you, if he fails, can winter be far behind? It is not. It takes the form of Shirley MacLaine, in a part requiring the deftness of Myrna Loy; instead she runs the schtick she has run for the past 30 years, that of a stinker granny, turning every line she utters into the stab of a yellow jacket. Aniston alone skims across this mire unscathed, I don’t know how. For one thing her touch on a role is infinitely light. For another, she really is a master comedienne. She seems to be quite tiny, but her size gives her an appeal, which is met by her tiny features in the broad plains of her face. Inside her, as inside Mickey Rourke, is the instrument of a harpsichord, so that she is never stuffy but also never undignified, even when disdignity looms. She is probably not a physical comedienne, as were Katharine Hepburn and Carole Lombard, but is more along the lines of Jean Arthur, who had a quirky voice just as Aniston has quirky mouth, and one we love to have with us so we can watch it and wonder. She knows exactly how to register the merest ripple of difficulty. You’ve got to hand it to her, except I hope no one ever again hands her a movie so badly written and directed as this one is. Mark Ruffalo, where are you when we need you? Oh, there you are, gasp, true blue to the end!

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Posted in ACTING STYLE: AMERICAN REALISTIC, Jennifer Aniston GODDESS COMEDIENNE, Kathy Bates, Kevin Costner, Mark Ruffalo, Richard Jenkins ACTING GOD, Shirley MacLaine, Upper Class Romantic Comedy

 

Horrible Bosses

20 Jul

Horrible Bosses – Directed by Seth Gordon. Low Comedy. The Three Stooges take on The Axis Powers. 94 minutes Color 2011.

* * *

What a disappointment! No wait a minute. I went to it because of the stars, and the stars do not disappoint, which is why three stars are allotted to this. The three stars are actually very funny. Colin Farrell plays a drugged-out dauphin with a comb-over to Donald Sutherland, who is an ideal boss, but who dies in his first appearance, so his chief of staff falls under the crazy sway of Emperor Farrell, and misery ensues. Jennifer Aniston plays a nymphomaniacal dentist who longs to have her otherwise engaged dental technical drill her. And Kevin Spacey who slave-drives everyone around him like Simon Legree plays the CEO From Hell with gorgeous relish. Spacey is given and rewards the most film time of the three. His grandmother scene is almost worth playing money for, except that one would have to subject onesself to the rest of the movie to do so. It is the only time I laughed. Or smiled. Or didn’t feel like leaving. For the problem with the film lies not fall with the three stars who play The Axis Powers, but with The Three Stooges who conspire to kill them. It’s a wonderful premise, especially when Jamie Foxx comes along as a professional hit man to fortify their resolve. He is delightful. As is Bob Newhart as a replacement boss. It is the style of playing of the three victims which I find distressing. What they do is actorish, indeed acteroid. You would call it hammy if it aimed at a high style, but since it aims at a low style, you would call it improv. They never shut up and they never stop Rube Goldberging responseses to the situation and to one another that read like the contents of a trash basket. That is, their collective playing is a conglomeration of what any good actor would throw out.  They drain every ounce of humor from the premise by trying to make everything, and I mean everything, funny. And as a result we the audience can find nothing funny. I didn’t laugh. Neither did the other three people in the movie house.  The only three people having fun were those three actors. They found one another infectious. So did I, except in a quite different way.

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Posted in ACTING STYLE, Colin Farrell, Donald Sutherland, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Aniston GODDESS COMEDIENNE, Kevin Spacey, Low Comedy

 
 
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